Antoinette A. 'Toni' Madert
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Antoinette A. "Toni" Madert, 85, a violinist who later worked at two now-defunct Washington retail stores, died of congestive heart
failure April 13 at her home in St. Michaels, Md.
She was one of the locally well-known Inazawa sisters who played many social events and special functions in the Washington
area during the late 1930s and early 1940s. Mrs. Madert, a concert violinist who trained at the Peabody Institute Conservatory in
Baltimore, and her sisters Dorthea and Liesa, who played cello and piano, were described as three talented sisters in The
Washington Post in the early 1940s.
Mrs. Madert was born in Washington. Her mother was born in Germany and her father was born in Japan, and she lived at the
Swiss Legation where her father worked.
During World War II, when the family lived in Chevy Chase, FBI agents would make a nightly patrol to their house, Mrs. Madert's
son said. Her father, Yoneji Inazawa, would invite the agents in to play cards at the end of their shifts, and they often accepted,
occasionally excusing themselves to search the house for contraband radios.
She graduated from Western High School and then attended the Peabody Institute Conservatory.
She and her sisters also worked together as office managers at the Little Tavern Shops headquarters in Silver Spring, and Mrs.
Madert later was a manager at the old Woodward and Lothrop department stores and at leather-goods retailer Camalier and
Buckley.
Mrs. Madert moved with her husband to Fort Worth, Texas, in 1960, then to Atlanta. She returned to this area in 1963, settling in
Potomac. The couple retired in 1978 to St. Michaels.
She was a member of Christ Church in St. Michaels and worked on special projects and with the Altar Guild. She also was a
volunteer for the American Heart Fund and raised money for cancer and diabetes organizations for many years.
Her husband of 56 years, John H. Madert, died in 1999.
Survivors include her son, John H. Madert II of St. Michaels; her sisters, Liesa McFadden and Dorothea Burrer, both of Potomac;
and two grandchildren.